At last the tea-party came to an end. We all accompanied her to her carriage, and as she was about to get in she turned with a sudden impulse, threw her arms round Mr. Longfellow's neck, and said, "Vous étes adorable," and kissed him on his cheek. He did not, seem displeased, but as she drove away he turned to me and said, "You see I did need a chaperon."
Johan has just come home from Boston, bringing incredible stories about having talked in a machine called telephone. It was nothing but a wire, one end in Boston and the other end in Cambridge. He said he could hear quite plainly what the person in Cambridge said. Mr. Graham Bell, our neighbor, has invented this. How wonderful it must be! He has put up wires about Boston, but not farther than Cambridge—yet. He was ambitious enough to suggest Providence. "What!" cried the members of the committee. "You think you can talk along a wire in the air over that distance?" "Let me just try it," said Bell. "I will bear half the expense of putting up the wire if you will bear the other half."
He was ultra-convinced of his success when, on talking to his brother in Cambridge from Boston in order to invite him to dinner, adding, "Bring your mother-in-law," he heard, distinctly but feebly, the old lady's voice: "Good gracious! Again! What a bore!"
There is also another invention, called phonograph, where the human voice is reproduced, and can go on for ever being reproduced. I sang in one through a horn, and they transposed this on a platina roll and wound it off. Then they put it on another disk, and I heard my voice—for the first time in my life. If that is my voice, I don't want to hear it again! I could not believe that it could be so awful! A high, squeaky, nasal sound; I was ashamed of it. And the faster the man turned the crank the higher and squeakier the voice became. The intonation—the pronunciation—I could recognize as my own, but the voice!... Dear me!
[Johan, desiring me to know his family, suggested that we spend the Christmas holidays in Denmark, and we arrived safely after a slow and very stormy voyage.]
"BJÖRNEMOSE," December 20, 1877.
Dear Mother,—Denmark looks very friendly under its mantle of snow, glistening with its varnish of ice. It is lovely weather. The sun shines brightly, but it is as cold as Greenland. They tell me it is a very mild winter. Compared with Alaska, it may be! The house, which is heated only by large porcelain stoves, is particularly cold. These stoves are filled with wood in the early morning, and when the wood is burned out they shut the door and the porcelain tiles retain the heat—still, the ladies all wear shawls over their shoulders and shiver. I go and lean my back up against the huge white monument, but this is not considered good form.
The Baltic Sea, which is at the foot of the snow-covered lawn, is filled with floating ice. It must be lovely here in the summer, when one can see the opposite shores of Thuro across the blue water.
My new family, taken singly and collectively, is delightful. I shall tell you later about the dear, genial General—my father-in-law—the kind mother, and the three devoted sisters. Now I shall only write—as I promised you—my first impressions.
We live in a manner which is, I fancy, called "patriarchal," and which reminds me continually of Frederika Bremer's book called Home. A great many things in the way of food are new to me. For instance, there is a soup made of beer, brown bread, and cream, and another made of the insides of a goose, with its long neck and thin legs, boiled with prunes, apples, and vinegar. Then rice porridge is served as soup and mixed with hot beer, cinnamon, butter, and cream. These all seem very queer, but they taste very good, I asked for oatmeal porridge, but I was told that oatmeal was used only for cataplasms. Corn is known only as ornamental shrubbery, and tomatoes, alas! are totally unknown.